"Let not world-objects be your mind’s master. Let them be, if at all, subservient to the mind. To be spiritual is not to look for one’s delight and fulfillment in the objects of the world. The mind that causes delight through any object can also provide delight without such an object. Delight in reality belongs to the mind alone. It is verily mind’s own gift."

The Guiding force of Narayanashrama Tapovanam & Center for Inner Resources Development

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PR 31 Dec 2015 - Unravel The Contradiction Between The World and Mind

The mind is the author of the senses, source of the senses and the mind is also equally the source of what the senses perceive because in that perception, mind alone plays a crucial and sovereign role. This is the contradiction. What is the contradiction? Though objects seem to be incidental in causing experiences, experience by itself is not objective but subjective. The experience does not depend upon the object. When there is no object we still experience ‘we are’, ‘we were’. You wake up from sleep to say ‘I slept and I knew nothing.’ When nothing alone was outside, ‘I’ was there.

The subject of spirituality remains very subtle, abstruse and it defies the intelligence because there is a secret, there is a contradiction. I will try to give you an inkling of it.

Our body is part of the world. And we all know that our body is born from our parents, was born from the parents. And the parent’s bodies were born from their parents. The first parents were not born from any other parents because they were the first. So the first parents were evolved from the pāñcabhautik world, the world consisting of pañcabhūtās like earth, water, air, fire and space. This is the sequence that we can think of.

But, that ‘but’ is very important. This is not true about the inner personality which is not consisting of matter and energy. This is true of the material evolution of the world. But within our body there is something supra-material in character that we call sentience and consciousness which does not have a beginning. That consciousness somehow expresses itself as the mind, intelligence and ego.

In Bhagavad Gita, Krishna refers to his prakṛti - the manner in which God or the supreme reality manifests itself. That prakṛti consisting of eight factors. Five are the pañcabhūtās outside. Three are mano buddhireva ca ahaṅkāraḥ - Mind, intelligence and ego (Bhagavad Gita 7.4). They are very clear references to what we have within our body other than the body.

Why do I call them other than the body? Because the body is consisting of matter and energy and no matter and no energy in the world has any power like thinking, feeling, sensing, memorizing, knowing, enquiring, doubting, clarifying. Matter cannot sense nor can energy. But we are doing all this. So all these are possible only because of the mind, intelligence, ego content within the body. They are not parts of the body but they are associated with the body.

When you start judging matters on the basis of our inner personality namely mind, intelligence and ego, everything proceeds from there. We first of all understand that we have a body. Body doesn’t tell us that 'I am' because it is inert. The sentient mind says that there is a body. Not only that, the sentience inside the body can make the body felt and also unfelt. It makes the body felt in the wakeful state. It makes the body unfelt in the sleep state.

So the sentience is capable of producing wakefulness on the one hand in which it senses the body, activates the senses and then the world is cognized. The world is actually a product of cognition by our senses. If our senses were not there, the world would not have been there at all. This is a point that you would immediately question and you cannot understand.

The proof for the world is our experiencing the world. The experience does not belong to the body or the senses. The experience is inner, inward and it belongs to the mind. Only when the mind senses the body and activates the senses, the world cognition follows. So the cognition of the world completely rests upon our mind.

So the entire world about which you theorize, it is actually a product and outcome of the mind and the senses. So what is the source of the world which we see and live in? It is our mind.

As we are wakeful to the world now, we are totally unaware of the world in sleep. In sleep we don’t disappear but the world disappears. We always remain either wakeful or asleep or dreaming. That ‘we’, or ‘I’ part never becomes non-existent. But the world and the object part becomes non-existent.

So mind is the source of the body, of the world. Our body is shaped within the mother’s womb not by an external factor. Our senses also are shaped not by any external factor. It is all shaped by the sentience characterized by the mind, intelligence and ego.

So if the world is sensed by the senses and the senses themselves are shaped and made by the mind, then what further proof do you want? The mind is the author of the senses, source of the senses and the mind is also equally the source of what the senses perceive because in that perception, mind alone plays a crucial and sovereign role. This is the contradiction.

What is the contradiction? Though objects seem to be incidental in causing experiences, experience by itself is not objective but subjective. The experience does not depend upon the object. When there is no object we still experience ‘we are’, ‘we were’. You wake up from sleep to say ‘I slept and I knew nothing.’ When nothing alone was outside, ‘I’ was there.

The true existence is the ‘I’. it is denoted by the term ‘I’. And that existence reveals itself in wakefulness, does not reveal in sleep and it reveals its own inner products in dream, all created by itself.

And while you are dreaming, it is not a dream at all. It is just like wakefulness. This is the contradiction I refer to. What is the contradiction? The biological body is a sequential development in the world. But when you start interacting with this world, the interaction follows from the mind, it is sourced by the mind, follows from the mind, it is resting upon the mind, it is dissolved in the mind. So the mind seems to be the source. And this mind is associated with the body and which body is a biological evolute of the world. See the contradiction there?

Unless you are able to unravel this contradiction and understand it properly, spiritual fullness will never come. Though objects are incidental in causing experiences, experience by itself is subjective and inner and it does not depend upon the object. So the object is dependent and the subject is independent. When there are two factors, one of which is dependent and the other is independent, the independent one is this reality and the other one is an illusion. This is the rationale.

The dreamer is the fact but all that is dreamt during the dream is an illusion. Because when you wake up none of them is there. But till you wake up all of them were there.

What is illusion? Illusion is a phenomenon which you are not able to explain rationally. When you are not able to explain a process scientifically and rationally, it becomes illusion. It is a category which we have identified. Either something exists or it does not exist. But something exists till you enquire into it and find out that it is not there.

“Swamiji, can there be something like that?”

Yes. We say darkness. How do you say darkness? Is it visual? ‘I’ verdict, verdict by the eyes. But do you agree for the eyes to see anything in this world? There must be the presence of light. Without the light, the eyes cannot see anything. So apply the same principle to see whether there is darkness. Where there is darkness bring light and examine whether the darkness is there or not. Then darkness disappears. Then how do you say that there is darkness?

It is a wrong verdict to say it is dark. Which is dark? Bring light. Help the eye to see. Then there is no darkness. Then where was darkness? How dare you say that? For your eyes to see there must be light. So bring light and see. Then if the darkness is there, then we shall accept. Otherwise you have to say there is nothing like darkness. This is the way our philosophy makes its progress and fulfillment. Everything is absolutely logical and rational.